American poses final Tuesday test for surging Virginia squad
Freshman Will Bates was tabbed the TopDrawerSoccer.com Player of the Week last week after scoring in four straight games for the Cavaliers. The forward leads the Virginia scoring column with six goals this season. Photo by Bennett Sorbo.
The No. 10 Virginia men’s soccer team returns to Klöckner Stadium tonight for a battle with American, its final non-conference opponent of the season. The Cavaliers enter the match boasting a 7-0-1 non-conference record.
Virginia (10-3-2, 3-3-1 ACC) looks to extend its unbeaten streak, which stretches back six games to an Oct. 2 loss against North Carolina.
The team’s most recent outing resulted in a 0-0 tie against No. 6 Maryland. Fighting wet playing conditions and a rock-solid Terrapin defense, the Cavaliers managed only 11 shots in Saturday’s game compared to Maryland’s 18. Boosted by the play of Virginia sophomore goalkeeper Diego Restrepo, however, who came up with seven saves, visiting Virginia secured its — and Restrepo’s — seventh shutout of the year.
“It’s a point on the road against a pretty good team in an unbelievably difficult environment to play in,” Virginia coach George Gelnovatch said. “Coming away from it, it’s a positive for us. Coming away from it with a point and getting ready for the next one.”
American (9-4-2, 4-1-1) aims to bounce back from a 2-0 defeat against Holy Cross Saturday. It marked the Eagles’ first loss since Sept. 19 and prevented them from overtaking Bucknell for the lead in the Patriot League standings.
“They’re good,” Virginia sophomore defender Shawn Barry said. “So we just gotta take them like we did Maryland. They’ve got a really good record, a good RPI, so we have to play hard and not take them lightly.”
Junior forward Daniel Shannon leads the Eagles with four goals and five assists this season. Junior forward Mike Worden also has four goals, and six other players have racked up two goals apiece. Some fans could figure that American’s mediocre 21 goals this season point to a potential lack of a high-octane attack, but it is still one more goal than the Cavaliers have scored this year.
Despite taking 224 shots to just 118 by its opponents, Virginia has managed only 20 goals to this point, the second worst output in the ACC. Relying mostly on defense to win games, the Cavaliers have surrendered just seven goals this year, the fewest in the conference.
Freshman forward Will Bates — named TopDrawerSoccer.com’s Player of the Week last week — leads Virginia with six goals and one assist this season. Saturday night’s shutout against Maryland ended his streak of four straight games with at least one goal. Senior midfielder Neil Barlow and sophomore midfielder Tony Tchani back up Bates with four goals each.
Tonight’s contest marks the last game before Saturday night’s regular season finale against N.C. State. The ACC Tournament gets underway Nov. 11 in Cary, N.C.
“Every game since the Virginia Tech game have been must-win games for us,” sophomore defender Greg Monaco said. “We all have team goals and in order for us to accomplish them we’ve gotta pretty much win out.”
